Famous Golfers And Their, Um, Handicaps

In celebration of National Golf Day (yes, there really is one), I decided to indulge in one of my favorite time-wasters: looking up the golf handicaps of the rich and famous. Eleven years ago, I first found GHIN (Golf Handicap and Information Network). It’s a service of the USGA on which thousands of players keep their handicaps. Back in 2001, you could not only look up a famous person’s handicap, you could also see when and where they had last played. Since then, GHIN has decided to keep the location a secret, but the dates and scores are still posted.

Anyway, it can be sort of fun to every once in a while to type in a name, take a stab at the state of residence, and see what pops out. In fact, I just did that for you, dear reader. What follows is a list of 20 celebrity golfers and their handicap indexes, in descending order. (Just FYI: Handicap indexes are plugged into the slope rating of a particular course to figure out an individual’s handicap on said course.)

20. Clint Eastwood, 22.1: Pretty solid for the 81 year-old. Rumor has it that Clyde, the orangutan from the classic, “Every Which Way But Loose,” is his part-time caddy (“Dog-leg right turn, Clyde,” he says to his pet, who then turns and punches out his playing partner.)

19. Tim Tebow, 21.7: There is a “Timmy Tebow” listed at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Florida. This Timuquana “Timmy” apparently scrambles around the back of the tee box for five minutes, then shanks his drive into the woods, then miraculously saves par…on every hole. Has to be our Tim, right?

12. Wayne Gretzky, 9.9: On the links, the “Great One” is merely “the Pretty Good One.”

11. John Boehner, 8.6: The House Speaker must have given President Obama a few strokes when they played last summer, right? Or maybe he didn’t budge?

10. Charles Schwab, 7.8: The founder of his eponymous company was the captain of his high school golf team. One of the best golfers on the Forbes 400 list. Only books tee times online so he can save a few bucks.

9. Terry Lundgren, 7.7: I’d bet the well-dressed head of Macy’s doesn’t wear this shirt on the course.

8. Scott McNealy, 7.5: The Sun Microsystems co-founder and former CEO/Chairman hasn’t just played golf since he left the company in 2006. He recently founded WayIn. No, it’s not a golf company.

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Who is Tony Romo kidding….he is about as close to being a legit + handicap as he is to leading the Cowboys to a Superbowl win. Send a marker around with him for a season to keep score and apply the rules and see what his handicap is.